Broadway Across America Houston
www.broadwayacrossamerica.com

PRESENTS

The evening began with a scrumptious dinner at Artista Restaurant located in the same building as the Hobby Center for the Performing Arts.  As we looked over the menu, the waiter served us with delicate banana plantain chips with assorted dips and sauces.  Kathleen Reed had potato leek soup served with Stilton cheese, port wine glaze and bacon tempura.  While I had the delicious gulf crab meat with baby spinach and field green lettuce.  Served caprice style, the crab salad was garnished with orange and red tomatoes, surrounded by petite mozzarella cheese balls and drizzled with hazelnut-dill vinaigrette.

Now the dinner sounds quite opulent but it did not prepare us for the rich and vivid experience of the new Broadway musical SPRING AWAKENING.  What a way to start the new year of 2009!  Here are some words to describe SPRING AWAKENING:  Mature strong language, deliciously obscene, sexual situations; an awesome explosion of teen angst.  It’s DA BOMB!  If you love theatre, you would be in complete Nirvana.  It is that good.  The next day Kathleen and I talked about the show and the conversation was superfluous.  I simply couldn’t contain myself.

Theresa:  Oh my goodness, did you just see that?  Wasn’t that just simply brilliant?

Kathleen:  It was good!  The music was great

Theresa:  Incredibly inspiring.  To me, the musical itself is incredibly inspiring.  I would consider it a rock opera for the 21^st Century.  I mean, after watching the show I made some definitive personal decisions that I consider life-changing.  The fact that those people died….should I say that?  Or no, I shouldn’t (laughs)?

Kathleen:  It kinda gives it away a little bit…..(laughs).

Theresa:  That’s okay.  I mean everyone knows that if you go see an opera, somebody always dies.  Somebody always dies in those daytime soap operas.  In fact, I just saw Marley & Me this weekend and my friend Ania tells me right before the movie starts that somebody dies.  But that’s not the reason I went to see the movie.  The fact that someone dies in the story inspires me to live every day as if it is my last.  And when I woke up this morning after having seen SPRING AWAKENING, I was so happy to be alive!

Kathleen:  I will say this…the group cast, even though it didn’t have a huge character base is very young.  Same as the music and the instruments, it’s small but very modern.

Theresa:  Right.  It’s not like a huge orchestra but it totally rocked the house.  It was neat the way they had the rock band right on top of the stage with the actors. 

Kathleen:  They had the violin, the cello, the base, the pianist, the guitar.

Theresa:  The conductor, he was so animated.

Kathleen:  I have to tell you that sometimes he’d steal my attention (laughs).  And this is why I want to see it again.  Because as I was listening to the words of the songs I was also watching everybody perform as well as watching the conductor.

Theresa:  Yes.  It made people want to see it over and over again because you miss a lot of the good stuff just seeing it for the first time. 

Kathleen:  It was fun the way he got into the music while he conducted the band.  He robbed my attention a lot of the times. 

Theresa:  He was amazing.  When you think of those old-school conductors, the word “boring” comes to mind.  But he was so animated the way he instructed the band.  I was head over heels over this guy.

Kathleen:  Some of the actors would play piano as well.  Like, they’d take over the musical instruments while acting and the whole show is going on and then your attention shifts off to something else.  That was pretty neat. 

Theresa:  Jared Stein who is the Music Director served as musical director / conductor for the Broadway national tour of Rent.  Not only was he good looking, he is incredibly talented playing the keyboards while conducting the band.  I’m like a total groupie now (laughs).  After seeing those sex scenes onstage, I like wanted to make out with this guy.  It's a good thing I'm married....

Kathleen:  (Laughs)…..groupie…

Theresa:  The whole show is just brilliant.  The fact that they picked people from the audience who sat onstage while the actors and musicians were performing is just pure genius.

Kathleen:  Yeah, I think that was all pre-arranged though.  It must have been organized through a school…

Theresa:  I think they were picking audiences that night….for the ones to go onstage.

Kathleen:  They chose a youthful audience, from a certain age group.  The actors weren’t older.  They weren’t way late in college or post-college dressed to be high school kids.  They were just post-high school.  In fact one of my favorite singers Sarah Hunt who plays Martha is a recent high school graduate.

Theresa:  Well some of them are…like Christy Altomare recently graduated with a BFA in Musical Theater from the Cincinnati College–Conservatory of Music.  And Blake Bashoff just recently made his Broadway debut in SPRING AWAKENING in December 2007.  The musical is based on the 1891 German play by Frank Wedekind.  So the costumes date back to 1800’s Germany but the hairstyles and the music were more punk rock.

Kathleen:  Yeah that’s modern.

Theresa:  And there were only 2 characters that played the adults, one male and one female.  So it was more of a symbolic characterization whether they played the abusive father, the mother, the strict disciplinarian principal, the teacher or the neighbor – there were only two adults.  The rest of the cast were the kids reminiscent of the way adults were portrayed in Charlie Brown.  Let’s talk about the musical numbers, which one was your favorite?

Kathleen:  The Dark I Know Well sung by Martha who is played by Sarah Hunt was great. 

Theresa:  The song is about incest and child sexual abuse.

Kathleen:  I think the topics are so great because no matter what generation the song is sung for, everybody can relate.  It’s universal and timeless.

Theresa:  Classic…

Kathleen:  I think Sarah Hunt had a wonderful, beautiful voice.  She’s my favorite.

Theresa:  Do you think you might just like her a little bit more because you’re feeling sympathy for what the character was going through?

Kathleen:  No.  Oh no, it’s due to her voice.  She has by far the most beautiful voice, very strong, a little bit deeper.  I mean, she just graduated from high school.  According to the Playbill, “Sarah Hunt feels fortunate to make her professional debut in SPRING AWAKENING”. 

Theresa:  She’s making her professional debut…which means this is probably different from the Broadway cast.

Kathleen:  Yeah, I told my dad (who was a theatre major in college) that we were going to see SPRING AWAKENING.  And he asked, “…in New York?”  He thought we were traveling to Broadway (laughs).

Theresa:  No, Broadway has come to Houston.  Last night we went to the Houston premiere of the national touring company.  But Broadway or no Broadway, they all had amazing voices.  The whole cast, all the girls…all the boys….it was beautifully cast.  They were all talented.  The actors all fit their parts.  The singers played their characters so well, it fit like a glove.  In fact, Steffi D who plays the character Ilse is a top 5 finalist on Canadian Idol 2006.  They are all triple threats, all extremely talented.  What do you think of My Junk, the masturbation scene?

Kathleen:  (Laughs) it was hilarious!

Theresa:  I thought so too (laughs).  The masturbation scene accompanied by the masturbation song.  I was trying to describe it to my husband last night.  The intense act of masturbation was accentuated by the father pounding on his teenage son’s bedroom door.  The way the boy’s excitement was heightened by the danger of being discovered.  I mean, who doesn’t go through that?  That was classic.

Kathleen:  (continues laughing) It was hilarious!  That and the song with the two boys that are gay….

Theresa:  Yeah, The Word of Your Body in the second act…the homosexual kissing scene…that was definitely funny.  What do you think of Totally Fucked?

Kathleen:  I didn’t really like Totally Fucked.

Theresa:  What are you saying?  I loved it.  It was so powerful!  It drove the audience wild and some gave it a standing ovation.  Probably because it was so strong….not only the language but the entire performance was powerful.

Kathleen:  The music was good, the power behind it.  I don’t know…..for some reason I can do without that word.  Now it would probably be different if I was listening to it in the CD in the car driving down the road then I’d probably jam it up.  Not that I don’t cuss like a sailor (laughs) but….

Theresa:  (Laughs) You probably didn’t enjoy it as much because it was really obnoxious, like “in your face” strong.  But I loved it.

Kathleen:  No, not as much. 

Theresa:  What other musical numbers did you like?

Kathleen:  The Song of Purple Summer, the finale.  The whole impression of SPRING AWAKENING is in that song.  There wasn’t a part of the entire musical that dragged.

Theresa:  No, the show wasn’t boring at all.  Time flew by because they kept you at the edge of your seat.  The sex scenes were pretty graphic.  The nudity consisted of young teenage girls’ breasts and nipples exposed.  The boy suckling on the nipples (laughs) and the pornographic literature being passed around in the classroom were pretty shocking.

Kathleen:  (Laughs) on yeah, that’s right.  Well actually I almost cried when Moritz committed suicide.  I had tears when he killed himself.

Theresa:  Did you?

Kathleen:  I thought it was really profound.  Because of the shame the adults caused.  The young boy looks up to the adults for guidance and they pushed him out of school.  They cheated!  The teachers lied.  And then Moritz did not have enough courage to tell his dad, knowing that he might have let his father down.  And you know it’s timeless because kids go through that…and it’s sad.

Theresa:  Remember when Ilse was asking him to walk her home?

Kathleen:  He was saying….”why didn’t I say yes?  Why didn’t I just walk her home?” (emits a sorrowful sigh).

Theresa:  I know…..the teenager’s life is so fragile.  And you’re right the topics are all timeless and universal: abortion, suicide, sexuality….even back in the 1800’s and also today.

Kathleen:  The adults don’t take it into consideration the impact that they have on their kids. 

Theresa:  It’s so true.  And abortion wasn’t safe back then….

Kathleen:  It wasn’t as safe until the 1980’s right? 

Theresa:  And Melchior thinking he was going to have a child…..the hopelessness. 

Kathleen:  It was a good thing they had an upbeat song in the end.  Because it would have been really depressing for us (laughs).

Theresa:  (Laughs) yeah that last song depicted the true SPRING AWAKENING….

Kathleen:  Seriously!  That last song was very happy….

Theresa:  For whatever reason one would want to see this show, the best reasons are for the sex scenes (laughs), the masturbation scene is hilarious, the music……

Kathleen:  yeah….

Theresa:  I mean that rock band was jammin!  This is a true rock opera. 

Kathleen:  (Laughs) I think I could drag my husband to see this musical.

Theresa:  Just for the sex scenes (laughs)?

Kathleen:  No, to see the whole thing.  It was really neat.  He would love the music.  It is definitely different. 

Theresa:  And another topic we talked about earlier is the child sexual abuse.  Right?

Kathleen:  Yes…

Theresa:  Can you imagine the mom trying to dress up her daughter to prepare her for the abuse.  Remember that?

Kathleen:  (nods her head) Uh-huh…..

Theresa:  I was like…..oh my goodness…..I can’t believe they’re singing about this…